A Tumultous week

Perth was the centre of attraction for the past few days with CHOGM .It was over before it started and I am still not sure what was achieved other than a great get together of Commonwealth leaders and the Queen came to Perth  and we all had a traditional sausage sizzle on the front lawn of the city.

The weather was good as well . I had a good break from training .By Sunday , Australia was in the grip of the QANTAS debacle. Everything in the world today is escalated manifold by the manner the press reports and re -reports everything instantaneously .We don't get news once but a multitude of times and versions.Every iota of information is squeezed out of a story and with it peoples sense of perspective. We are jaded with death , war , casualties , disease and famine because we see so much of it everywhere. Same for the QANTAS lock down and stopping its service.

I enjoyed the Chasers QANTAS parody put up on face book again even though it was from the series Chaser 4 years ago. Very apt.



Monday: I slept in as usual but did my long run in the evening.It was pretty warm at about 5.15pm and I ran to Nedlands about 11km and ran back. it was undulating and managed a 5.30 pace for the first 11km and then got a little slower as it got darker .partly as I did not drink anything till the 17 km mark . but the legs held up and managed a 22km run. The longest since the marathon. I just need to focus on keeping the pace steady . I was a little erratic with my mind wandering and the pace dropping off.





Tuesday : Always a hard day following the long run .I was up and out of the house by 5am .I had a 1.5hr hard speed work ride at Nedlands. Did not quite do 1.5 hrs but overall did just under 2 hrs of riding with most of it at speed. I averaged just under 32km overall and probably was just above 33 kph for the nedlands loops. I managed 57kms. The legs were sore at the end. As everyone else had an easy week I was alone doing the loops. Tried to chase down some cyclist and I managed to catch up with them before they would take off up an incline and leave me behind. But is was good to be doing some speed work finally.

In the evening , I had interval sessions with Brad at the WA Athletics Stadium. It was a warm up and then 3 , 4, 5, 4, 3 min intervals at "I "pace which was now 4.12 for me with the same amount of recovery accept with 1 minute of the recovery time spent in the Plank position to strengthen the core . I was OK for the first 2 interval sessions but struggled with the next 3 recording at  just above I pace of 3 secs ,9 sec and 6 secs  for the last 3 intervals. It was then a slow cool down .I ran a total of 10kms. I was tired and my throat was very sensitive to the air and I was spluttering and coughing a bit.